So I was reading the Chronicle the other day. Don’t ask me why I read it, I often wonder myself. I usually read the letters to the editor as it tends to provide some amusement to my otherwise dreary day, and I came across a letter that really just pissed me OFF!
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Tests and poverty
In his column “Testing: The measure of our kids” (Opinion Page, April 11), David Bacon cited a study indicating that “the poorer the family, the lower the score was likely to be. Schools in affluent neighborhoods do well, and schools in poor, minority neighborhoods don’t.”
This fact is often mentioned by those who wish to imply that the tests are otherwise invalid - that they do not measure achievement and predict performance.
The actual truth is that intelligent people tend to make high incomes and to have intelligent children. The same, alas, is true in reverse. On the other hand, there is little relationship between the amount of money spent on public schools and test scores.
In academics, as in every other endeavor, high achievement is impossible without talent. Americans expect too much from schools.
Just as many white people use the issue of crime in order to express concerns about race, I suspect that much of the current interest in public school education is caused by apprehensions about the evolution of the economy.
John Engelman
Walnut Creek
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WTF. My god, are we really that backward? Acording to this guy, all we have to do to get rid of poverty is not let poor people breed. Then everyone will be smart and wealthy. Just had to vent. Anyone else with me.
True but I felt the need to throw in some profanity and vent. Made me feel a fuck of a lot better about it. I might move this to GD, or if people want to start debating, maybe it will move all on it’s own. So what do you think. Are you stupid enough to agree with the SOB who wrote in that letter to the Editor.
I guess what the idiot who wrote the letter didn’t realize is that the reason wealthier kids tend to do better is because those tests are fucking biased to rich white children.
I have no idea what a lot of banking and investing terminology means, but I have read a book that showed test questions that involved investing terminology. Yeah, cause if your parents are struggling to make ends meet (like mine did) they really give a shit about investment plans and the stock market.
Grrrr…just another case of using inadequate measuring tools to measure people’s worth. :mad:
Rather, I was in the position of a spore which, having finally accepted its destiny as a fungus, still wonders if it might produce penicillin.
–Ayi Kwei Armah
Children who grow up in abusive households are much more likely to grow up to be abusers than kids who don’t.
Children who grow up in households where drugs and drug use are prevalent are more likely to become drug abusers.
Children who grow up poor are likely to remain poor as adults.
And children who are raised by stupid parents will be stupid.
Cause and effect? How about: Stupid people breed and raise more stupid people. Stupid people are too stupid to have high-paying jobs. Therefore stupid people are poor. And the children they raise will also be stupid and poor. Where’s the error in cause-and-effect there?
Now, it’s true that stupid people sometimes have smart kids, and that smart people sometimes have stupid kids. But the numbers are such that if stupid people stopped breeding, we’d have many fewer stupid people.
Of course, there are other ways of alleviating stupidity. And obviously there are poor people who aren’t stupid. But rich people do tend to have rich kids, right?
So andros, your reasoning is:
Stupid people raise stupid people. Rich people raise rich people. Poor people raise poor people. So. . .
If you’re stupid, you are likely to be poor. If you’re rich, you are likely to be smart. Which leads to. . .
If poor people stop having children there would be less stupid people.
I remember reading our state Republican party platform a few years ago (don’t know if this is still true).
It stated that ‘poverty does not cause crime - crime causes poverty’. In almost exactly those words (I’ve dumped the flowery phrasing due to poor recall).
Yeah, that too.
:mad:
In my world, ‘black’ and ‘white’ are merely extremes in the spectrum of ‘grey’.
Aw, geez Tom, you’re no fun at all. I could have had them going for days.
How about this then:
there are many reasons why people are poor in the US.
one of those reasons, directly or indirectly, is stupidity.
Therefore
3) if the number of stupid people decreases, the number of poor people will also decrease.
That follows, right?
If we can then agree that stupidity often results from a combination of heredity and environment, then if stupid people don’t have kids, the number of poor people will decrease. QED.
Bigirl, you totally missed his point. I agree with andros: Stupid people have stupid kids, and the lower your intelligence, the more likely it is that you will be poor.
This is of course in general terms, because the system does favour rich white kids, but that doesn’t change the fact that many of the rich white kids are the smartest around, and, opening a can of worms, many of the poor kids in the ghettos are the dumbest around.
That is not to say that a rich white kid is necessarily smarter than a poor kid, but the fact remains that stupid people have stupid kids, and stupid people are poorer.
Draw your own conclusions… and guns.
I don’t think that vasectomizing poor people will solve the poverty problem… I mean, someone’s got to be poor. Not only is stupidity heridetary, but alcoholism is, too.
Funny thing about commonly known facts like that. They are frequently wrong.
Seriously, I dispute that there is any evidence that Rich people are smarter, that poor people are stupider, that rich people have smart kids and that poor people have stupid kids. I challenge people to provide evidence of this “Commonly known fact”. Hopefully this “fact” can co the way of some of those other “commonly known facts”; like Mexicans are lazy, Asians are smart, Blacks are stupid.
There is evidence that rich kids do better on standardized test. There is no evidence, as far as I know, that being poor makes you stupid. Being poor makes you a bad standardized test taker. And everyone is missing the larger point.
The viocer said:
On the other hand, there is little relationship between the amount of money spent on public schools and test scores.
This is total bullcockie. Why send your kids to private school, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send them to a good college, if it doesn’t matter the amount of money spent on education?
How about a little experiment. Let’s send all the poor kids to private school and all the rich kids to poor public schools.
Ha! Didn’t think I’d get any of you smart, rich people to bite.
Are you a troll, or just really stupid yourself? This guy’s talking about PUBLIC schools and STANDARDIZED TESTS, not the overall value of private schools!
While there might be a connection between genes and intelligence, I think it’s ludicrous to connect socio-economic standing with intelligence, especially based on test scores. Factors ranging from an inadequate school funding to malnutrition to the psychological impact of poverty all play a part in how much is learned and therefore demonstrable on a test.
Anyone giving a moment’s consideration to ideas like, “They must be poor because they’re stupid” has their head so far up their ass it’s a wonder they could be exposed to such idiocy in the first place. I’ve met equal numbers of advantaged, educated morons and bright poor people.
